I’llBeWaiting
by mavethesque
Summary: Roudise/Louwheeze - Confessions happen between Rudy and Louise.


Rudy Stieblitz wandered the halls of Wagstaff Elementary, meandering toward the cafeteria for lunch. Mentally, he had been making notes and lists for days now, conjuring up a plan that had been in the works for a while now. Ever since that one magical Valentine's Day when Louise Belcher had given him his first kiss and at the same time, taken his breath away. Although it usually didn't take a lot to drain the small asthmatic's lungs, that was the real kicker.

He remembered it every day since, and he knew he would never forget it. Even though previously, the thought of Louise had never really crossed his mind as more than a friend, now, the boy had a new perspective. He had told nobody according to Louise's wishes (threat) and the two hadn't discussed it since.

Today that would change.

Louise had just grabbed her tray and sat down in her usual spot by her two siblings, Gene and Tina Belcher, and began picking at her lunch, which today was tacos. Although not enthused by this, her older brother was nearly ecstatic.

"Holy crap, Gene, slow down. You're gonna get the bends or something, God," Louise said in her common sarcastic tone. "We have tacos every week, anyways."

"Don't tell me to slow down!" said Gene, mouth full of taco meat. "Tacos are a national treasure!"

Louise rolled her eyes and dropped the subject, letting Tina continue her previous thought that was being discussed before Louise had sat down.

Rudy spotted the unmissable pink ears across the busy cafeteria, bustling with kids from different grades. With a puff of his inhaler, he made his way toward the lunch line to grab some food and collect his thoughts.

After coming to the end of the line, Rudy turned his head toward the direction of Louise's iconic hat, and began walking that way. An attempt to clear his nervous and distracted mind resulted in tripping over his accidentally-left-untied shoelace, and down he went not five feet away from the Belcher kids' table, in a spray of taco fillings and chocolate milk everywhere within a three foot radius.

Louise, noticing the carnage, jumped to her feet in the middle of her sentence to help her best friend. Tina and Gene got up as well, even though the latter's eyes were mostly on the taco splatters.

"Geez, Rudy, are you okay?" Louise asked, giving the boy a hand and pulling him up. When she heard a few kids snickering, she shot out a look that could kill, and then quickly turned her attention back to her friend. She grabbed a napkin from the nearest table and handed it to Rudy, who was fishing out his inhaler from his pocket again.

"Oh, I'm fine, Louise. Thanks for helping me," he said, attempting to clean his shirt off. "Actually, I wanted to-"

The redhead was interrupted by the sound of Louise scolding her older brother. "Hold that thought, Rude- Gene, what the hell are you doing?"

Gene was in fact scooping up bits of taco with a spare taco shell off the floor. "Oh, sorry. Where are my manners?" he said, standing up to hand Rudy a bit of taco. "Rudy, you gonna eat this? Five minute rule!"

"Uhh, no thanks, Gene. I'll just get a new one," said Rudy. "Louise, I-"

"Five minute rule??" asked the smallest Belcher. "Dude, it's the five second rule."

"Not on taco time," responded Gene.

"Whatever. Hey, Rudy. I'll get you some more lunch, just head to the bathroom and get cleaned up, we'll take care of this, okay?" said Louise.

Rudy decided it best to bring up the subject of the kiss later. He nodded and headed toward the school bathroom, mentally resolving to just get it over with and not let himself get interrupted again, although he understood it wasn't on purpose that Louise had interjected his thought. There were more important things to do for now, such as picking up some spare clothes and changing.

Louise picked up another tray and headed to pick up another lunch for Rudy. She was stopped by a ladle blocking the tray from sliding.

"Ah, ah, ah, missy. One per person," said Hildy, the lunch lady on duty.

"Oh, no, it's not for me, it's for Regular Sized Rudy," said Louise. "He took a huge spill, didn't you see that??"

Hildy didn't move the ladle. "Uh-huh," she said sarcastically. "I said one per person."

Louise narrowed her eyes, and the two argued for a minute.

Meanwhile, Tina and Gene were grabbing wet paper towels and cleaning up the spills on the floor. Tina glanced over to where Louise was standing.

"I wonder what's going on over there," she said, toweling up the remaining chocolate milk. She could see Louise and the lunch lady arguing in the short distance.

"I'll go see," said Gene, standing up quickly, eager to get out of work. He took a step toward the lunch line.

"Wait, Gene, I need help... and he's gone," Tina mumbled. She shrugged. She didn't mind; she actually liked work, as much as her siblings didn't. It was more interesting than lunch anyway, and there were better views of butts from down here.

After she was done, she saw her sister and brother marching back toward their table, the former with an angry expression and both without a tray. They both sat down. "Louise, what happened?" Tina asked.

"Hildy didn't believe me when I said he didn't have a lunch. I guess... I'll just give him some of mine or something," she muttered.

"Aw, like a romantic date," said Tina. "You two would be super cute together."

"Absolutely not," said Louise with conviction. "Just because I kis-" Her sentence was quickly cut off by snapping her mouth shut. Stupid, stupid, stupid!! she thought. You're gonna tell Rudy after you kissed him to not tell anyone or you'll kill him and then you almost tell your sister? Sick!!

"Just because you what?" asked Tina. At that moment, thankfully for Louise, Rudy walked back into the cafeteria and to the Belchers' table.

"Oh, hey, Rudy's back you guys!!" Louise said, a little too enthusiastically.

Tina squinted. I'll find out what you did, Louise, she thought.

Rudy, now clean, sat down at their table and sighed. "Well, that was interesting," he muttered. "Sorry about that, guys. Thanks for cleaning it up, though."

"It's okay, Rudy. It happens," said Tina. "Louise said you could have some of her lunch."

"Really, Louise? That's so nice of you." The regular sized lad smiled. "It was a bit of a fiasco earlier. I don't know what came over me; I'm usually so careful about untied shoelaces because if I fall, it knocks the wind right out of me more than usual." He sheepishly laughed.

Louise rolled her eyes and half smiled. She broke her taco that she hadn't had a chance to eat yet, messily, and handed half to her friend.

Twenty minutes later, the bell for their next class rang, and kids began picking up their trays and dumping trash. After the group of Belchers with Rudy in tow got up and began shuffling towards the exit, Tina ran off to find Jimmy Pesto, Jr., and Gene spotted his friend Alex a few feet away and went to talk to him before the next class.

Reaching the exit, Rudy and Louise were about to part ways for science class when the former tapped his friend's shoulder gently.

Louise turned to Rudy and raised an eyebrow in question.

"So, Louise, before everything happened, earlier, I was meaning to talk to you about something," he said, wringing his hands a bit. "I know you have to go to science, so can you maybe meet me on the playground after school?"

"Oh. Uh, what about, Rude?"

"Well… I'd rather just tell you then. If you don't mind." said the boy softly. "Uh, I gotta go, I'll see you then, okay?" he said quickly, then he waved, turned and quickly walked away.

Louise looked in the direction he had nearly ran in confusion. "What does that boy want?" she mumbled under her breath.

Later, after the school day had ended and kids were wandering towards their homes, to the Wonder Wharf, or to Family Funtime, Louise and her siblings walked down the steps of

Wagstaff Elementary when the smallest Belcher stopped in her tracks.

"Oh, yeah, Regular Sized Rudy wanted to talk to me after school. You guys go on ahead, I'll meet you at home." she said, turning around in the direction of the playground when Tina stopped her by gently grabbing her shoulder. "Wait, Louise, about what?"

Louise picked up Tina's hand with two fingers and took it off her shoulder. "Don't do that. But that's the thing. I have no idea. He's being kinda weird, though."

"Weird, how? Like he's thinking about wearing a fedora every day now weird, or like he started talking in an Australian accent all of a sudden or-"

Louise cut Tina short. "What? No, he seemed… nervous? I mean, more than usual. But there weren't any like… threats around, so I don't know what he's on about. He told me to meet him on the playground after school while we were walking to science class. But he was all sweating and strange? And then he almost ran away, which is weird because he never runs because he friggin' can't!"

Tina furrowed her brow. "Wow, that is weird," she said. "But typically, Louise, nervousness? Sweating? Acting strange? Those are signs that someone like-likes you." Tina said the last words of her sentence in singsong.

"They are?" asked Gene, nearly incredulous. Tina assured him with a nod.

"That. Is absolutely ridiculous, T." Louise said through a laugh. "Whatever. Smell you later, guys." And with that, the pink-ear-adorned girl shrugged on her backpack and made her way to the playground.

Meanwhile, Rudy had been pacing a bit by the back fence of the playground, although it was more like shuffling around which was easier for the boy. He had been rehearsing in his mind what he wanted to say for what felt like hours, but it had been less than ten minutes since the school day ended. He glanced at a corner of the fence and saw some daisies, then on a whim, plucked a few. And then he saw her.

Louise waved to her friend from down the sidewalk. She walked rather leisurely toward him.

"Hey, Regs. What's up?" Louise asked, setting her backpack down on the concrete. "You were kinda acting weird earlier."

"Weird? What? Me?" asked Rudy quickly, then cleared his throat and shook his head. "I mean. What I meant was, yes, I wanted to um, chat with you for a minute."

Louise raised an eyebrow and tilted her head a bit. "Well, I'm here, so fire away."

Rudy began. "Louise, you know that… thing that happened like two Valentine's days ago?"

Louise's eyes widened, then she quickly whipped her head around to make sure nobody was listening. "Shhh!!" she stage whispered to him while she slapped a hand over his mouth and crouched down behind the cover of the bushes which were inside the fence. "Remember what I told you??"

Rudy mumbled something under Louise's hand.

Louise rolled her eyes and removed her hand. "What?"

"I know, but I swear I haven't told anyone, and besides, I'm telling you. Hold on a sec." The boy took a breath of his inhaler.

He sighed. "Look, I haven't been able to stop thinking about… our kiss," he admitted, the last words in a hushed whisper. "I just… wanted to tell you that I like you. A lot. And that's all." He brought the few flowers to her hands.

Louise's expression softened slightly. "Wait… What?" She looked down at the daisies her admirer had offered her and hesitantly took them from him. "You mean like a crush."

Rudy nodded. "I was nervous because I wanted to tell you, but I didn't know what you'd say. I still don't."

Louise took a deep breath. "I really don't know how to respond to that, Rudy…?"

"I know, I know." He paused. "I guess what I wanted to ask you was maybe we could go on a date sometime? But if you don't wanna, that's okay."

She looked taken aback slightly. She didn't say anything.

A minute passed of awkward silence that felt like years.

"Louise?"

The girl shook her head to clear her mind. "Listen, don't tell anyone this. Swear you won't or I guarantee I'll end you."

Rudy gave his word.

"Rude, as much as I hate admitting this, I…" Louise mumbled something under her breath.

"What?"

She muttered something only a bit louder this time.

"What??"

"I like you, damn it!" And with that, she grabbed his face and kissed him on the lips.

After the two pulled apart, she gave him a swift smack in the face, albeit slightly gentler than their last kiss-and-slap interaction.

Rudy's eyes grew wide and he blushed, then took a breath of his trusty inhaler.

Before he could say anything, Louise's face turned red and she looked down at her feet and began to explain.

"I never knew it until that one day when you were buying love weeds from Zeke that year. I thought they were for me, and I tried to gross you out, you remember that, and then turns out they were for Chloe Barbash, right?" Through a cough she mumbled something that sounded like Chloewhoisajerk.

"What?"

"Nothing. So they weren't, and, I don't know, I was disappointed for some reason. It didn't dawn on me until later, but I was too stubborn to admit it even to myself."

She paused again.

"Which is weird for me to say, I know, but it's the truth. But listen, I'm not ready for like… going on dates and school dances and crap. I just wanna take time to be a kid, you know?" She finally looked up and met Rudy's eyes.

"So there it is," said Louise.

Rudy nodded. "Okay. I understand." He smiled with a slightly sad undertone in his eyes.

Louise saw how his face looked and gave a small sigh. "I like the way things are right now."

The boy nodded again, a little less somber. "I do too," he admitted.

"I don't want being more than friends to ruin, well, being friends, y'know?"

"Yeah, I understand. I don't really wanna think about not being friends with you, Louise." He smiled truthfully this time.

He took her hand, then looked to her face to see if it was okay. She didn't let go.

"But whenever you are ready, I'll be waiting."


End file.
